


The New Year and its Resolution

by ausmac



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 19:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4191516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ausmac/pseuds/ausmac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught in an elevator together between floors after a New Years Eve get together, Gene and Sam discover something rather extraordinary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Year and its Resolution

When you grew up in and around Manchester during and after the War, if there was one thing you made certain of, it's that you weren't queer. Even if you were.   

But if you were queer, you didn't let on because it was a quick way to get yourself beaten up or bullied or both. A kid had enough to put up with at school as it was, depending on where he lived and how he spoke and dressed and how much money his parents had and whether he played with the right kids and followed the right teams. You just didn't even think about being queer.   

And wherever possible, you went into deep denial about the whole thing if there was any hint you might possibly be that way. So what if you did happen to notice when another kid looked good in his swimmers? And so what if you happened to find the curve of a slender boy's arse nice on some level? You put it down to boyish admiration and made the usual lewd suggestions about the girls in school and, if you were tough enough and smart enough and good lookin' enough, you even got to fuck a few of 'em.   

And if that fucking never did really satisfy you the way everyone told you it should, you never said. If it turned out the girl - once she got her gear off - did nothing for you, you thought of that slender boy's arse and that got you hard, which was both good and bad. You bragged about your successes and got a reputation for being a good'n, and it stuck with you as you grew into a man, joined the Force, became a copper and then a detective. You wore a coat of armour a foot thick made up of cigarettes and attitude and booze and the right sort of behaviour for a real man.   

And what if you somehow were that way? As long as you behaved as if you weren't, that was all that mattered. In the end, a man's actions were what counted in a world of superficial values. And maybe it was some kind of illness you'd get over if you never acted on it.   

So it went for years, into a marriage that grew flat and stale as time passed until you wondered if there really could be any more, if passion and hunger, closeness and need were something that only happened to other people. If it was really something that did happen at all, or was just this daft lie perpetrated by people down the ages, and made into bad films and romance novels. Because it had never happened to you, never once anything like it, and you couldn't see it was ever likely to.   

And then one day a nancy smart-arsed Manchester United supporting lunatic DI named Sam Tyler came into your life, and your sanity flew out the window on its little tweety bird wings.   

No man should walk the way he did, with that gliding hip-swing, that cocky turn of the head, those eyes you could drown in, that rare smile that lit him up like a set of Christmas lights. A ballsey, arrogant little shit who acted like he was a few slices short of a loaf. A nutter. A twit with a capital T for Trouble who made you drink even more than you ever had before, because just watching him had you hard. Just being near him made you hot and bothered so you had to cover it up with smacking him down and shoving him into walls and slamming him the occasional gut punch. And just maybe that was the only way you'd ever get to touch him, through three layers of clothing and a million miles of don't-go-there.   

Until one New Year's Eve when they were both heading out from a party at B Division Headquarters and with typical timing the power went out and there were the two of you, stuck in a lift between floors, already more than half pissed on too much fine whiskey and all alone in a very small, very dimly lit space….

 

Back in the once-upon-a-time real word of 2006 Sam had rarely been drunk. Oh, he'd gone overboard on the wine now and then, but he'd always believed that when he was rostered on the next day then it was his duty to turn up fully compos mentos. But since his arrival in 1973 he'd taken to the booze in its many and various forms far more frequently. At times it had been to help him sleep, at other times to help him forget. Then he'd made a decision, taken a stand - or more particularly, a leap - and the world of 1970's Manchester had become his true home.   
    
The times of drinking himself stupid had reduced, but the instigator of the more frequent drinking bouts was with him at the time the lift jerked to a stop. They had drunk a fair bit at their own party at the Railway Arms, and topped it off with even more at the party they'd attended at B Division. The Super had basically insisted they attend, so attend they did. Drink they had. And now, stuck in the lift they were.   

"This could be bad," slurred Gene from where he was resting against the lift wall opposite Sam, testing the inactive set of buttons.   

 

"Bad as in one of us might need to pee, or bad as in the cable will snap and we'll plummet to the bottom?"   

Gene sighed, turned to face Sam, crossed his ankles carefully and studied them. "Cheerful sod you are. The first one is a definite possibility, however, as I might be slightly drunk."   

Sam laughed and almost fell over, catching himself at the last moment. "More than slightly." He belched. "Pardon me."   

"Always do. So tell me, my trusty offsider - you make any New Years resolutions?"   

Sam considered the question, scratched his nose thoughtfully. "Not really. Never keep 'em if I do, so they're more New Years Deresolutions . You?"   
    
"Oh yes. But they don't bear repeating."   

"Any about me?" He blinked, not knowing why he'd said it, but having said it, Sam was very curious for the response. He watched the DCI run a hand through his shaggy blond hair and sniff.   

"One or two."   

Sam grinned crookedly. "Can I hope that one of them is along the lines of, I will stop bouncing my DI off walls?"   

Gene snorted, eyes narrowed in the gloom. "Like that's gonna happen, unless and until you stop being quite so much the prick."   

Sam straightened and undid the buttons of his leather jacket; the air in the lift was becoming hot and stuffy. "And mine - if I had one, which I don't - would be along the lines of, try and teach my DCI some respect for the protocols so he doesn't have to keep bouncing me off the walls because, of course, I'm so often bloody right that, well…" He lost the train of thought back around the last bend, and blinked. "Just that, then."   
    
Gene stripped off his camel coat and tie, folded them with meticulous care and tossed them into a corner. "Definitely drunk, you, when you can't finish a lecture. Protocols is for those who cannot go from A to B without signing something in triplicate. Yer gut feelings don't require procedure. Just a gut."   

"Which you certainly have," Sam said, chuckling. Gene slapped his belly, then undid a few shirt buttons, revealing a singlet beneath.   

"I have a man's body," he said, stripping his shirt off, following it with his singlet, which flew across to lay on top of his coat. He slid down to sit on the floor with his back to the lift wall and Sam followed a moment later, stripping off his own jacket. "Which body is getting damned hot. Reckon we could die of heatstroke in the middle of a Mancunian winter? Wouldn't that look good on my Death Certificate. Died of the heat in the company of Sam Tyler, known fruit cake."   

"I like fruit cake," Sam said absently, remembering the taste of fruit cake at Christmas with his mum and dad. "And pudding, topped with custard. Mum would hide a couple of sixpences in the pudding and when I found 'em it was like an extra pressie, an' I could save 'em and spend 'em at the sweet shop. I could buy a packet of dip dabs all for myself. Sometimes you'd even get two lollies in a bag, which made me wonder about the poor kids who got a bag with no lollies in 'em. Such a disappointment…"   

"What the bloody hell are you ravin' about?"   

Sam turned and realised he was sitting very close to Gene Hunt, so close he could feel the heat radiating from the big, solid body. While that in some ways was a bad thing, it was also a good thing, in ways which actually also made it a bad thing. He sighed, slid sideways and rested his head against Gene's shoulder. "I dunno. I forget. That's the good thing about drinking. You forget stuff."   

"Oh yeah. Like how it's all right to lie all over me?"   

Sam chuckled, closed his eyes. "Funny Gene." He turned his head, rubbed his cheek along the damp arm and shoulder, smelling deodorant and Gene-smell that was neither bad nor good, but just Gene. Skin-of-Hunt, hot and close, closer than he dared to dream of, awake or asleep, drunk or sober.   

"So then, you drink and forget, do you?"   

Sam thought there was something odd about Gene's voice, but he was too out of it to be sure. "Yeah. Mostly."   

"So if somebody did somethin' funny to you while you were drunk, you wouldn't remember it?"   

"Probably not. Long as it wasn't permanently disfager…disfrig…scarring." He half-opened his eyes at Gene's face, a blurred blob above him. "Why, you thinking of doing something funny to me? Funny ha-ha or funny peculiar?"   

"Bit o' both. Been thinkin' of it for some months now. This seems like the ideal moment to do something peculiar. 'long as you promise to have forgot it when you're sober."   

"Cross my heart and hope to…" And before he could say the word 'die' an arm slid around behind him, a hand pulled his chin up and he was being kissed.   

It was amazing how fast being kissed by your supposedly homophobic DCI tended to make you sober up. Sam went from fuzzily drowsy to completely awake in moments.   

And in those moments, in that passage of heartbeats between the past and present, was the Choice.   Push him away. Hold onto him. Be sensible and behave responsibly. Respond, like the bisexual you were, to the dominant bastard who turned you on like a light switch every time he touched you.   By the time his heartbeat had caught up with his sobriety, Sam had swiveled around, climbed onto Gene's lap and ground himself against the bulging mound of Gene's crotch.  
Gene grabbed him around the upper arms and swore against his mouth.   

"You bloody bastard!"   

Sam paused, frowned. "What?"   

"All this time…you're queer!"   

"Not. Exactly. Bisexual." Sam rotated his arse. Gene gasped and his grip became wonderfully painful.   

"'spose that's why you can never give a straight answer, you bent little twerp."   

The voice was hoarse with stress and hunger and it lit up a whole set of nerve endings Sam hadn't even known he had. Gene left off holding his arms, slid his big, hard hands down Sam's side and around to cup his arse. Sam closed his eyes, let himself feel the heat of those hands going all the way through his trousers and underpants to his skin. He leaned forward and somehow he found Gene's mouth. Like a heat-seeking missile, he thought, shock setting in, because it had to be shock that made him shiver, flush hot and cold, let himself be lifted and moved so that he was settled against a broad, naked chest, arms wrapped around Gene's neck. It felt like a homecoming, like throwing yourself into the void and being caught and safely grounded.   

"Are you listenin'?"   

"Hmmm. No."   

"Daft bugger. I said, the lights have come on. We'll be goin' down any minute."   

"Oh good. Wanna go down on you."   

"No, the lift, you twat."   

Lips pressed to his forehead and he opened his eyes, a little dazed. "Shit!" Sam arched upwards and slapped his hand against the red Stop button. The lift jarred to a halt and he fell backwards onto Gene's lap. He looked across into reddened eyes that were glaring at him.   "That's just great, Tyler . Now we're probably stuck here until they reset the bloody thing!"   

"Good, 'cause I might be still a bit drunk but the things I want to talk about will not be finished with in the time this lift takes to get to the ground floor." He took a shuddering breath. "And I said that without taking a breath."   

He was sitting where he'd fallen, across Gene's thighs, and it was the simplest thing to lift his hands and pull his shirt out of his pants and toss it aside, and to let his fingers start the conversation by wandering up Gene's stomach, tippy-toes. He wasn't sure, but he thought he might have felt the Earth shift on its axis and into a new reality where it was okay to sit on Gene Hunt's lap. And where it was definitely okay to feel Gene's large hands on his hot back, fingers and thumbs splayed across him, holding him in place.   

Sam slid his hands down, found belt buckle and fly, undid both, slid his hand inside, noting absently how Gene shifted beneath him to make room. He watched perspiration gather on Gene's upper lip as he found the hard length of him tightly held inside his briefs and pulled it free. The hands at his back clenched, slid down to his arse and began to squeeze and then he was being pushed forward so that he was squeezing and pumping at the same time as his own erection, tight inside his pants, was being pushed into Gene's. He rubbed them together and Gene groaned, head falling back against the lift wall with a thump.   

"It's called frottage," he said brokenly against Gene's open mouth.  

"It's called fuckin' torture," Gene responded, then tilted his head and consumed Sam's mouth, surging inside, tongue hotter and larger than it had a right to be, seeking the back of Sam's mouth. Somehow one of Gene's hands had managed to undo him as he lifted himself into the kiss. He felt his pants and briefs being pulled down, worked halfway down his thighs. Then one of those hands slid across his raised arse, down the crack between his buttocks and a big finger worked its way inside, slick with perspiration. The finger turned and twisted and stroked him inside and Sam jerked upwards, pushing himself further into Gene's mouth, then down again, impaling himself deeper on that fabulous finger.   

It was awkward and a bit uncomfortable and strange but that didn't matter because Gene was stroking him inside even as he pumped at Gene, even as they moved together and his climax took him by surprise as it rarely had before, making him arch and sob into Gene's mouth as he came, clenching around the finger, pushing against the big body that held him, feeling Gene shudder and come against him a few moment's later.     
They weren't allowed much in the way of afterglow; the lift jerked again and began to move and they had to scramble to dress and be standing there, more or less decent, by the time the lift arrived at the ground floor and the door opened.     
    
Gene pulled himself together, ran a hand through his hair and stepped out of the lift, to find a disheveled Ray standing next to a couple of uniformed coppers. Ray looked from him to Sam and back with concern. "Guv, you both okay? We couldn't get the damned thing to work."   
    
"Just fine, Ray m'lad. DI Tyler and I spent the time very constructively." Gene grinned as he pulled on his gloves. "He's a bit of an expert at techniques. I think my New Years Resolution is to take a much closer look at his methods."     
"We had a lovely chat, did some male bonding. Next week we'll throw a party and announce our engagement."   

Ray snorted and shook his head. "That I can believe. With flowers and wine, no doubt. Well, I'll be off then, Chris is unconscious in the car and I promised to take him home." Saying that, he tipped them both a jaunty salute and left to find his car.   

"You know," Sam said, as he stood beside Gene on the icy footpath outside the front door, "we never did actually talk about stuff."   

Gene looked sideways at Sam over the top of his collar, watching the dark eyes watching him, reading his DI as he'd never quite been able to before, and he said what he wanted to without taking the time to consider things like consequences.   "You could come home with me. I've an empty house at the moment, wife's away for a Christmas visit with her sister in Birmingham ." He resisted the urge to reach out and touch, because you just didn't do that, even in this brand new year when you'd found that some fantasies were real. " Lot of space for talking. Not quite as cramped as a lift."   

He wasn't sure what he was expecting; an excuse to say no, disinterest, rejection. What he got was a hand on his arm, and a look from Sam that filled in more spaces inside him than he'd even known were empty. "I'd like that."   

And all the way home all he could think of was how he'd found the answer to loneliness, and how very much he hoped the price for finding it wouldn't be too high.


End file.
